Aussie biotech startup secures $1.2m to disrupt palm oil market with lab-grown oils
Levur’s breakthrough yeast fermentation tech aims to deliver sustainable, high-value oils for cosmetics and food, cutting palm oil’s environmental cost.
Australian biotech startup Levur has secured $1.2 million in pre-seed funding to commercialise its synthetic biology platform, which produces nature-identical oils without environmental impact, targeting the $100 billion palm oil market.
The Sydney-based company, operating from Macquarie University, uses genetically engineered yeast strains to produce oils through fermentation, similar to brewing beer. The funding round was led by Main Sequence and GrainCorp Ventures, with support from SparkLabs Cultiv8 and the UNSW Founders program.
The company’s technology aims to address the significant environmental concerns surrounding palm oil production, which is found in 50% of supermarket products and 70% of cosmetics. Current global demand exceeds 75 million tonnes annually and is expected to quadruple by 2050.
"We're pursuing palm oil as our north star, but palm oil itself gets derivatised and broken up into hundreds of different oils, and that's where the price points go up dramatically," said Tom Collier, CEO and founder of Levur. "We're looking at MCT oil for cosmetics and OPO for infant formula."
